Namibia may be described nearly solely in superlatives: largest, oldest, driest, richest, most. Are you on the lookout for an African safari journey in a land of surreal landscapes and rising wildlife populations with a tradition of conservation?
Think about Namibia, the second least densely populated sovereign nation on the planet. With a inhabitants of two.6 million individuals residing in an space about twice the scale of California, the nation has huge areas dominated by deserts and bushland. Solely Mongolia and Denmark-administered Greenland are extra sparsely populated.
Namibia’s Unimaginable Pure Landscapes
Probably the most putting options of Namibia is the Namib desert, the oldest desert on the planet, estimated to have existed for properly over 55 million years. The Namib is a coastal desert; among the largest sand dunes on the planet stretch alongside Namibia’s western shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean. They’re the supply of Namibia’s identify: the phrase namib means “the place the place there’s nothing” or “huge place.”
On account of their naturally shifting patterns, dune measurement is notoriously inaccurate. Nonetheless, at 1,257 ft (383 meters), Dune 7 close to Walvis Bay is the best in Namibia and one of many highest on the planet. At 1,066 ft (325 meters), the Massive Daddy sand dune in Sossusvlei is smaller however much more well-known and recurrently climbed by vacationers.
The Namib desert can be dwelling to uniquely tailored vegetation and animals, such because the welwitschia, with solely two lengthy, strap-like leaves, which might stay for over 1000 years. The outer Namib desert is basically barren of vegetation; lichens and succulents are present in coastal areas, whereas grasses and shrubs develop on slopes and cliffs. A number of varieties of timber, together with a number of styles of acacia, are in a position to survive the extraordinarily arid local weather.
On Nat Hab’s Wild Namibia Picture Expedition, visitors go to the personal 90,000-acre Kulala Wilderness Reserve on the fringe of Namibia’s nice sand sea. Wildlife is sparsely distributed on this austere panorama, however you’ll have an opportunity to seize photographs of desert species, together with oryx, ostrich, springbok, noticed and brown hyena, aardwolf and bat-eared fox. The uncommon dune lark’s whole vary is confined to this habitat. Discover the desert on quick walks, safari drives, or an early-morning scorching air balloon flight over the Namib desert dunes.
Past the desert, the superlatives proceed: Fish River Canyon is 100 miles lengthy, as much as 16 miles huge and 1,804 ft deep; it’s Africa’s longest canyon and, after the Grand Canyon in the USA, the second largest on the planet. The canyon affords breathtaking views and climbing alternatives for adventurous vacationers.
Namibia’s first UNESCO World Heritage Website, Twyfelfontein, has one of many largest recognized concentrations of rock engravings in Africa. Over 5,000 particular person figures between 2,000 and 6,000 years previous have been recorded there. Most of those well-preserved engravings signify rhinoceros, elephant, ostrich and giraffe, in addition to human and animal footprints and motifs of human figures in pink ochre. Objects excavated date from the Late Stone Age. The positioning varieties an in depth, high-quality file of formality practices regarding hunter-gatherer communities on this a part of Southern Africa over at the very least 2,000 years, and clearly illustrates the connection between the ritual and financial practices of hunter-gatherers.
Namibia’s landscapes additionally function record-breaking water and wealth. Namibia is the driest nation in sub-Saharan Africa and relies upon largely on groundwater. With a mean rainfall of about 14 inches per yr, the best rainfall happens within the Caprivi within the northeast (24 inches per yr) and reduces in a westerly and southwesterly path to as little as 2 inches and fewer per yr on the coast.
Earth’s largest (non-subglacial) underground lake is hidden beneath the Kalahari Desert in Dragon’s Breath Collapse Namibia. The lake is positioned at the very least 330 ft (100 meters) beneath the floor. Superlatives proceed underground, as Namibia additionally boasts the richest deposits of marine diamonds on the planet. The Namibian coastal deserts are the most important supply of diamonds on Earth, making Namibia the world’s largest producer of diamonds.
Wildlife in Namibia
Namibia is a paradise for wildlife, and the superlatives proceed: Namibia is dwelling to the most important free-roaming inhabitants of black rhinoceros in Africa and the most important cheetah inhabitants on the planet. Many endangered animal species may be present in Namibia: the African wild canine, the black and white rhino, the oribi and the a lot smaller puku.
Namibia is dwelling to a putting array of wildlife, from the Massive 5 sport mammals (lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant and buffalo) to ostriches and zebras roaming the gravel plains to penguins and seals chilling in Atlantic currents.
The Namib-Naukluft Nationwide Park, the most important sport park in Africa, helps populations of African bush elephants, mountain zebras, and different giant mammals, together with oryx, a sleek antelope that may survive with out water for lengthy durations.
Namibia’s plankton-rich coastal waters assist a rare array of marine life, together with an growing variety of southern proper whales. Cape Cross Seal Reserve in Namibia is the world’s largest breeding colony of Cape fur seals. Through the breeding season in November and December, as much as 210,000 seals may be discovered there.
Wildlife Conservation in Namibia
The story of Namibia’s wildlife is remarkably hopeful. Through the Nineteen Seventies and 80s, a dramatic improve in poaching prompted an equally dramatic decline in wildlife numbers. Drought and army occupation meant the prospects have been bleak for the nation’s human inhabitants, too. Conservation and conservation journey are driving contributors to the elevated success of each human and wildlife populations in Namibia.
Earlier than independence, within the mid-Eighties, a Namibian NGO and native leaders launched an modern neighborhood sport guard system to curb poaching in northwest Namibia. The primary neighborhood sport guards have been appointed by native headmen to assist reverse wildlife declines. The early sport guard system was primarily based on re-empowering native headmen who stated they didn’t wish to see wildlife disappear beneath the threats of drought and poaching.
John Kasaona’s father was a farmer and poacher who turned a sport guard. He tells the story in Satisfaction of Namibia: The Best Conservation Story Ever Advised.
When Namibia achieved independence in 1990, it was the primary nation in Africa and one among only some on the planet that integrated environmental safety into its structure.
Practically 20% of the nation is protected by nationwide parks equivalent to Etosha, however Namibia’s method to conservation is exclusive. On the core of the Namibian method to wildlife conservation is a give attention to native populations as stewards or managers of their very own livelihoods and pure assets.
Constructing from the neighborhood sport guard expertise, after enshrining environmental safety into the structure in 1996, Namibia’s authorities handed a legislation enabling communities to arrange conservancies—areas with outlined borders and governance and administration buildings outdoors of parks—giving native communities the correct to handle and profit from their very own pure assets, together with wildlife. This led to the creation of a singular system of community-based pure useful resource administration conservancies to drive each sustainable useful resource administration and empower traditionally marginalized communities.
Communal conservancies are democratically ruled by neighborhood members who elect their very own administration committees. Committees are accountable for managing the conservancy’s pure assets, together with wildlife, rangelands, and forests. When communal and freehold conservancies are included, 46.8% of Namibia is beneath some type of formal conservation administration.
This progressive method each safeguards the nation’s wealthy biodiversity and empowers communities economically and socially. Placing communities accountable for their surroundings has reworked the outlook for individuals and wildlife in one among Africa’s latest nations. Traditionally, Namibia is dwelling to among the world’s richest wildlife and poorest communities. By serving to individuals profit from their pure assets, conservation journey might help each to thrive.
Conservation Success for Wildlife and Native Communities
Namibia’s communal conservancies are profitable for each people and wildlife: lions, cheetahs, black rhinos, zebras and different native wildlife have elevated. Via initiatives equivalent to ecotourism and conservation journey, restoration has generated sustainable earnings for his or her communities.
The communal conservancy program has proven extraordinary outcomes, demonstrating that integrating local people issues and the aptitude to handle pure assets in conservation interventions can result in optimistic outcomes for each individuals and nature.
To this point, 235,000 individuals throughout Namibia have joined collectively to create some 59 particular conservation areas, which defend 132,000 sq miles of significant wildlife habitat—one-sixth of Namibia’s land space. Greater than 30 extra are within the planning levels. In simply over twenty years, Namibia doubled the quantity of protected house – and wildlife is prospering.
The communal conservancy program in Namibia has been profitable in restoring wildlife populations, notably giant animals equivalent to elephants and predators like cheetahs. In Kunene, elephant numbers have tripled; giraffes have elevated fivefold. Black rhinos, as soon as close to extinction, have rebounded, and free-roaming desert lions—diminished to lower than 25 by the mid-Nineteen Nineties—now quantity over 150 and canopy huge expanses of northwest Namibia. In 1982, Kunene was dwelling to as few as 400 oryx, 600 springboks and 450 zebras. Now, there are round 29,000 oryx, 175,000 springboks and 18,800 zebras. Their restoration has led to large will increase within the variety of predators, together with lions, leopards and cheetahs.
Native individuals profit consequently. As WWF Director Chris Weaver shared, “Tourism is key to that course of.”
Conservation areas deliver in additional than 5.5 million US {dollars} per yr and the communities that handle the land profit from jobs starting from ecotourism to gathering substances for upmarket perfumes. And since everybody advantages from preserving the area’s animals, poachers are now not welcome.
To foster a rising ecotourism financial system inside conservancies, WWF helps discover traders and affords enterprise coaching to conservancy members. Three way partnership lodges and campsites present the most important total supply of advantages to conservancies. Tourism creates employment and fosters a wide range of different sources of income, equivalent to craft markets.
Consequently, efforts to extend the financial livelihood and inclusion for girls are additionally a spotlight of Namibia. Namibian ladies have been traditionally excluded from pure useful resource administration. Girls now make up 35% of conservancy committee members, together with three committee chairs and the vast majority of conservancy treasurers. Consequently, ladies are receiving a bigger share of advantages and exerting a rising affect over useful resource administration and neighborhood improvement. Unsurprisingly, one examine in Namibia discovered that households in conservancies had greater incomes and higher entry to primary companies equivalent to healthcare and training than households outdoors conservancies.
See Namibia and Assist a Conservation Position Mannequin
Namibia is a job mannequin in involving native communities in pure useful resource administration and conservation efforts. The nation’s method to conservation is predicated on human rights and inclusion, with respect for the function of communities as stewards of their very own land and waters.
In WWF’s webinar, Conservation Throughout Borders, Dr. Robin Naidoo Senior Conservation and Lead Wildlife Scientist, “It’s completely basic that native communities who stay in these areas are key elements of the choice making… that they see advantages from conservation interventions … and that they … really feel that like they’ve a job to play in conservation of pure assets notably on the subject of enhancing their livelihoods. Namibia… has actually been a mannequin for the world to observe when it comes to guarantee that native communities are actually benefiting from wildlife conservation so there’s what’s referred to as Namibia’s pure useful resource administration program which has been instrumental in evolving person rights to native assets again to pure neighborhood.”
Since 1998, Namibia has created 86 communal conservancies, overlaying greater than 20% of the nation (64,162 mi2), and encompassing roughly 227,802 neighborhood members (9% of Namibia’s inhabitants). Fashioned and run by native individuals, these conservancies supply protected house for wildlife outdoors of official protected areas and generate greater than $10 million a yr in money earnings and in-kind advantages for native individuals. The cash goes instantly again to communities to assist anti-poaching operations, wildlife administration, and training and well being initiatives.
The Namibian conservation mannequin may be tailored in different nations by incorporating the safety of the surroundings into their constitutions and enabling communities to handle and profit from their very own pure assets. Namibia’s communal conservancies illustrate that if we are able to combine local people issues and the flexibility to handle pure assets in conservation interventions, the outcomes for each individuals and nature are very good. Namibia gives a mannequin that may be tailored in different nations.
Throughout Namibia and globally, communal conservancies have develop into a acknowledged conservation success story. Whereas challenges stay, conservancies have contributed to strengthening communities’ rights, voice and stewardship of the wildlife on which they rely for his or her livelihoods and cultures.
Namibia is a rustic of contrasts and variety, the place you may expertise completely different cultures. From the traditional rock artwork of the San individuals to the colourful attire of native Herero ladies, from German colonial structure to the fashionable skyscrapers, from conventional music and dance to modern artwork and literature, to witnessing conservation successes and groundbreaking communal management, Namibia has one thing for everybody.
